X Men: Dying Series
by Faithfulcynic
Summary: The X-women's life after X3 previously called My So Called Life . COMPLETE.
1. My SoCalled Life: Rogue

off: Well, this is my first official X-Men fanfic - hopefully the first in a series of posts if I get off my butt and write them. The bare bones idea of the series is to change things that I didn't like about The Last Stand :)

"My So-Called Life"

Rogue/Marie D'Ancanto

Dying wasn't as big of a deal as it used to be.

Jean had been re-discovered at Alkali Lake (the Jean Grey that had risen the first time apparently just a clone - although how that had happened was still anyone's guess) and the Professor had shown up after his so-called death sporting a new body and a scruffy looking goatee. Sabertooth had resurfaced and then Toad ... in fact it seemed only Scott Summers had gotten the short end of the stick, though you couldn't take anything for granted when mutation was involved.

Ain't that the truth, Marie thought as she pulled on her glove.

The cure had lasted all of a month but Marie had known it was over three weeks before it completely failed her. Magneto had floated away on a sheet of metal in his dramatic, over the top fashion and the next day she had started to feel a strange sensation all over her body - not quite tingling, not quite pin pricks, definitely painful. She had felt that way before her mutation had first kicked in too.

The next week Mystique had turned blue and slipped her government guards while Marie had absorbed a thought from Bobby - of ice skates, snow, and Kitty - without killing him. In fact he hadn't felt a thing; the feeling of nausea was all hers.

She knew it was over - for them, for the cure - but she held onto her hope that third week, just in case, somehow, she was wrong. Because sometimes God made mistakes; just look at the platypus.

But by the final week, Marie knew she wasn't wrong. It was hard to pretend when her brief touch had left Bobby's hand numb for two hours.

She apologized and told him that it was over and her ex was decent enough to wait a few days before going to Kitty.

Marie should have spent her last days as a human in celebration - casual touch, lots of sex, bikinis, hell -streaking, but instead she locked herself in her room and waited for the inevitable. And when it came, the total and utter failure of the cure, Rogue felt oddly free ... and forever trapped - a weird contradiction that she was sure the Professor would have fun discussing, if he wasn't busy trying to keep Jean from turning into Phoenix again.

In the end, it was Logan who broke down her door, held her despite her protests, and later took her out for drinks provided - he said - that she didn't get plowed on a regular basis. She slept through her hangover the next day and the day after that woke up at five in the morning and headed for the Danger Room.

A week was a long time to dwell on the future; if she was going to be a superhero, she was going the best damned one out there.

Rogue smiled grimly and then pulled on the other boxing glove.


	2. My SoCalled Life: Jean

"My So-Called Life" – Part Two

Jean Grey/Phoenix

Dying was all she thought about these days.

It was hard to focus on anything else - new students and teachers, talk of re-introducing Mutant Registration, Kitty and Bobby's new relationship (which she found particularly painful to endure when she could pay attention), or the failure of the cure … it all seemed so pointless when he wasn't there to share it with her.

Scott.

All they found were his glasses. Just his glasses …

Mostly Jean just thought about all the ways one could die in a school filled with mutants. There was Beast and Colossus who could snap her neck in half or Ororo who could zap her with a bolt of lightening. Jubilee could zap her too, come to think of it; the girl never did get to do much. Shadowcat could stick her in a wall to rot; Warren could drop her from seventy stories up. Iceman could freeze her and then someone could throw a brick or something … the possibilites were endless.

If Jean let them, of course.

Then there was Logan. She'd tried to have a conversation with him once or twice but it had been uncomfortable on both ends, Logan remembering killing the woman he had loved and Jean two seconds away from asking him to do it again.

All they found were his glasses. Just his glasses …

Her favorite fantasy was letting Rogue suck her dry because it seemed the most painful way to go and she not-so-secretly wanted that punishment. It wouldn't take much, just the lightest of touches, and then she would be free - her body a hollow shell (no cremation, phoenixes rise from ashes) – and her mind would be someone else's problem.

Jean sighed. Maybe if she had risen from the dead without a conscience perhaps.

She talked frequently with Charles when she wasn't thinking about death. His new body didn't bother her; she would know his mind anywhere. She forgave him for repressing the Phoenix personality; he forgave her clone for killing him. He helped her deal with the aftereffects of what the first Phoenix had done; she helped him when he was frustrated by the mistrust of the staff and the students.

Together they worked to merge Phoenix and Jean and for the most part it had been successful. She only felt the need to destroy solar systems when they went up against the Friends of Humanity or when Storm started in on what Logan called her 'mutant love bullshit.' And gradually everyone got used to them again, became more comfortable, even welcomed them.

But she still thought about death.

All they found were his glasses. Just his glasses …

They said you needed something to live for and when Jean had finally got up the nerve to ask about the details it seemed that no one had actually seen Scott die - all that had been found were his glasses, floating by the lake. Of course, the Phoenix had never left much more than an atom of anyone before but it was the one thing that kept her going, kept her sane, kept her from firing up Phoenix's powers, taking out a few people, and then willing herself out of existence.

All they found were his glasses. Just his glasses. Not his body.

It wasn't much, some days it wasn't enough, but ultimately it was better than the alternative.


	3. My SoCalled Life: Storm

Off: Sorry for the delay - work, then vacation, but mostly Storm is just a bitch to write!

"My So-Called Life" – Part Three

Ororo Munroe/Storm

Death was a natural part of the life cycle.

A person lived and then died, their body returning to the earth to bring forth new life that eventually followed in its predecessor's path. Suns, moons, and stars … even the weather - and she was the authority on the weather - followed a similar destiny.

Ororo had always believed, however, that the soul cycled as well; death was not just a decomposition of the body to sustain life for others but a stop made by all before a soul found it's new home. It was such a belief that should have made her rejoice at the rebirth of Jean and the Professor but, for some reason, Storm felt … uneasy about their return.

Obviously, she was happy that they were alive and there was a great relief at not having to go up against her best friend again but it also felt that something was off, unbalanced. It was strong, this feeling, but it wasn't anger. That she understood. She felt it when she thought about the humans who had taken away her parents or who had taunted her as a child. She felt it when she heard politicians talk about laws for mutants or the Friends of Humanity scream about abomination. Anger and hatred, these she understood.

It wasn't quite confusion. Confusion, Storm also understood. It perplexed her why the other students, the other teachers even, rolled their eyes and sometimes accused her of becoming almost evangelical in the mutant cause. They had seen what life was like outside the walls of the school, the day it had been invaded in fact, and yet they thought she was too paranoid, too anti-humans, and even in the same league as Magneto.

It annoyed her. It was difficult to believe in something so fully and then be compared to a lunatic.

Ororo couldn't understand how they could misjudge her so; she only wanted for mutants, for children like Rogue to be safe, to be accepted and treated as equals, to felt like they belonged. Things that she herself had struggled for all her life.

Logan said she'd probably make a lot more headway if she didn't sound like a damned actress going for an Oscar winning speech.

Storm supposed she felt at odds mostly because the pair, her friend and her mentor, had not been reborn in the way that she had always thought it was supposed to happen. The real Jean had drowned and then had emerged from the lake like a scarlett-haired Venus, reborn in her own body - that was a new concept. And Professor Xavier had essentially stolen someone else's body, also unfamiliar territory. She half expected to see Scott just walk up to the school one day because death did not seem to have the same rigor for the system that it once did.

She supposed that in time she would get used to the two of them again. The world seemed to change more often then not these days - first mutants, then the cure, then the failure of the cure - and she supposed that she needed to be adaptable and change with it, yet still hold to the values and beliefs that made her who she was.

Storm found it amusing that, being a mutant, change was hard to accept.


	4. My SoCalled Life: Kitty

Off: Jeez, and I thought Storm was hard to write. One more to go after this :)

"My So-Called Life" – Part Four

Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat

Death … it's hard to think about death when you're in love.

Shortly after the reports that the cure was beginning to fail, Bobby found me by our skating rink and said that he and Rogue were over and that he wanted to be with me.

Honestly, I wasn't crazy about the timing. I liked Rogue and I didn't want to hurt her, especially now that the cure didn't work. It seemed too cruel. And I also didn't want to be known as the boyfriend stealer of the mansion - suspicious or jealous teenage girls with mutant powers is never a good idea.

But I also couldn't deny that I wanted to be with Bobby so I spent the better part of a week trying to approach Rogue - not the easiest thing to do when she was barricaded in her room and I was coming up with things like "So, Rogue … Bobby talked to me the other day …" Ultimately, I chickened out and sent in the big guns. Jubilee. My friend was gone for an hour and during that time I tried not to pace through the walls as I ran through every scenario in my head. I didn't know a lot about Rogue - none of us really did - and it didn't seem unreasonable to wonder if she'd come storming through my room at any moment to come and kick my ass.

I must have jumped about ten feet when Jubilee threw open the door and gave me the thumbs up. My grin faded quickly however when I realized that there was just one more obstacle to overcome. The Wolverine.

There was a bond between Wolverine and Rogue that while most of us didn't understand we respected; I knew that if I didn't want my potential boyfriend to be breathing through holes in his chest that some explaining would have to take place first before Bobby and I were together. Jubilee refused to help this time saying that Logan gave her migraines. I didn't push it because I suspected the reverse was also true.

I stammered through my explanation while Logan drank his beer and when I was finished he nodded and then went off to find Rogue. When he returned - maybe five minutes later, ten tops - Logan pulled another beer from his stash in the cupboard and then said "okay", which (for Wolverine) was like a royal pardon or something.

I heard later that he told Bobby not to fuck things up or he would be very unhappy. That made me smile. I hadn't thought he cared. Bobby wasn't too thrilled though.

And that was that. Bobby and I were together and I haven't given death much thought since - not surprising given that the Professor and Jean were alive. Rogue eventually came out of her room and started training to be the ultimate fighting champion, Storm made efforts to mellow (some), and Jubilee kept us all entertained just by being Jubilee. The loss we all felt, the absence of Scott in our lives, seemed a little less painful with each passing day. And I had never been so happy, even if it made everyone around us want to puke.

It was hard to care about everyone else's gag reflexes when you were in love.


	5. My SoCalled Life: Jubilee

"My So-Called Life" – Part Five

Jubilation Lee/Jubilee

She was dead meat. Like seriously dead meat.

Jubilee would have groaned if she wasn't in the middle of a gigantic bubble - chewing gum always helped when she was stressed - and she didn't want to risk it exploding Wild Strawberry Bubble Yum on her face.

Of course it wasn't all her fault. Kitty, Bobby, Rogue, and Piotr were away with the team on a mission, leaving her and Siryn to baby-sit the younger students since Jubilee hadn't passed the third level of her Danger Room training yet. She'd made sure they'd all eaten, consoled two girls who'd had their hearts broken, and tucked them away for the night before, in her boredom, deciding to play the Wii in the common room - since the kid that usually stayed up flipping channels was off somewhere else.

She couldn't even blame what had happened next on her mutation. She had just thought that the system's wrist strap was dorky looking. Four minutes and a broken plasma screen later, Jubilee thought that might have been an error on her part. Especially since the most dangerous mutants in the house liked watching television. Especially since she knew that there was a hockey game on tonight and one of Logan's cardinal rules was never to fuck with him (or the t.v.) during a game.

Jubilee was now waiting anxiously outside, trying to come up with some kind of excuse. And kids on those soap operas thought they had it SO bad with THEIR school/home drama. My So-Called Life indeed. Claire Danes could kiss her ass.

Jubilee blew another large bubble and smacked away noisily since there was no one to tell her otherwise. She was so dead and she hadn't even made it passed the first level of the game.

There was a loud crack and Jubilee turned quickly, sparkles lighting off her fingertips as she prepared to raise hell if needed. At first there was nothing and then the light from her hands reflected off ruby colored glass.

Her first thought, of all things, was to wonder where he could have gotten those glasses before she lowered her hands, squeled, and jumped him. He hugged her back, a bit awkwardly as if rusty, and then pulled back.

"Dude," Jubilee said. "You are so late for dinner."

Scott Summers stared for a moment and then laughed. She took his hand and they walked back to the mansion.

Almost as good as having him back was knowing that no one would notice the broken television for at least another day.

The End (for now)


End file.
